Priceline.com Offers 10 Tips For Finding Affordable Thanksgiving, Christmas Airline Tickets

Consumers looking to fly home for the holidays this year probablywill have to dig into their pockets a bit deeper to pay for a ticket.A recent priceline.com study found that average retail ticket pricesfor Thanksgiving are running about 12% to 15% higher than last yearand 15% to 25% higher for Christmas-time tickets. Priceline.com'sfindings support other media sources that have reported higher pricesand fewer airline seats for this year's holiday travel.

There is a way to buck the trend. "Book now, when you can takeadvantage of lower advance-purchase prices," advises Mark Koehler,priceline.com's Senior Vice President, Airline Ticketing."Historically, airline ticket prices tend to creep up the closer youget to the departure date."

Koehler, a veteran of the nation's airline industry, offered someother advice. "Prices vary widely depending on departure and returndates. Try changing your dates until you hit a combination that works.Also, book away from peak days and try different flight times to bringthe price down."

Priceline.com's airline tickets service offers customers a choice.Those who don't want to bid for their tickets can choose the exactairline, dates and flight times they want from priceline.com's broadoffering of published-price tickets. For deeper savings, flexiblecustomers can use priceline.com's Name Your Own Price(R) option, wherethey pick the travel dates and price they want to pay for a ticket.Priceline.com then works to find an airline willing to sell a seat atthe customer's desired price. Travelers are given their flight timesand airline after the transaction is completed.

Priceline.com's Top 10 Holiday Travel Tips

1. FLY ON OFF-PEAK HOLIDAY TRAVEL DAYS.(a)

For Thanksgiving, priceline.com customers currently are findingthe lowest fares for the following trip combinations:

-- Depart Nov. 19, 21 or 22, return Nov. 25

-- Depart Nov. 21, return Nov. 26 or 27

For Christmas, priceline.com customers currently are finding thelowest fares for the following trip combinations:

-- Depart Dec. 19, return Dec. 27 or 28.

-- Depart Dec. 20, return Dec. 28.

-- Depart Dec. 21, return Dec. 27 or 29.

(a) Thanksgiving recommendations are based on a sampling of 11,000published-price ticket requests made in the first half of October2005. Christmas recommendations are based on a sampling of 7,500published-price ticket requests made from the end of September throughthe middle of October 2005.

2. PICK DAYS OF THE WEEK THAT ARE NORMALLY LESS BUSY.

For Thanksgiving, Tuesday, November 22nd and Wednesday the 23rdare once again proving to be the heaviest travel days of the holiday,with more than 55% of all customers choosing to fly on those days.Avoid those days to beat the crowds.

For Christmas, Dec. 21, 22, 23, 27 and 28 are currently theheaviest air travel days for the upcoming holiday.

3. PICK THE TIMES OF THE DAY THAT ARE NORMALLY LESS BUSY.

Time of day is important. You'll find the most affordable seatstraveling early morning (5-7 a.m.) or late evening (after 8 p.m.).Mid-day (11 a.m. - 4 p.m.) is a bit more expensive, but stillreasonable. Most expensive are the peak business travel hours of 8-10a.m. and 5-7 p.m.

4. BOOK EARLY.

The most affordable tickets are usually those booked more than 21days in advance of travel. Once you get inside 21 days or closer totakeoff, the cheap seats normally are gone and the expensive ones areall that's left.

5. SHOP AROUND.

Airlines do not sell out their most affordable seats at the sametime. Just because one airline doesn't have seats at the price youwant, another one might. Travel sites like priceline.com displayprices and availability for multiple airlines all on one screen, sothe shopping is quick and easy.

6. CONSIDER USING PRICELINE.COM'S NAME YOUR OWN PRICE AIRLINETICKETS SERVICE

Early bird customers who are naming their own price for apriceline.com airline ticket on a major partner airline currently aresaving an average of $40 per ticket compared to the price of a retailairline ticket.

7. THINK PACKAGES.

And not the gift kind. Airline tickets, hotel rooms and rentalcars often sell for less when they're bundled as part of a package,like those sold on priceline.com.

8. TRY USING SECONDARY NEARBY AIRPORTS.

It's often cheaper to fly through less-traveled airports. Insteadof Los Angeles, try Long Beach; Ft. Lauderdale instead of Miami;Midway instead of O'Hare; Newark instead of Kennedy or LaGuardia.

9. BUY E-TICKETS.

Paper tickets often incur additional fees and costs for shippingand handling. E-tickets are just as valid as paper tickets and moreconvenient, since there's no risk of losing the ticket.

10. DON'T OVERPACK.

Rule of thumb is one carry-on per passenger. Checked bags willcost extra if they're over an airline's size limit.

About Priceline.com

Priceline.com www.priceline.com is a travel service that offersleisure airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packagesand cruises. Priceline.com recently expanded its services, socustomers now have a choice: they can pick from a broad selection ofpublished flights, hotels, rental cars and packages at publishedprices or, for deeper savings, they can use priceline.com's Name YourOwn Price(R) service for their travel needs.

Priceline.com also has a personal finance service that offers homemortgages, refinancing and home equity loans through an independentlicensee.

Priceline.com operates one of Europe's fastest growing hotelreservation services through Activehotels.com, Activereservations.com,Bookings.net and priceline.co.uk. The company also operates thefollowing travel web sites: Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com,RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com. Priceline.com licenses its businessmodel to independent licensees, including priceline mortgage andcertain international licensees.